


Who Dares To Love Forever? - Cursed

by mansikka



Series: Who Dares To Love Forever? [5]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe(s), Curses, M/M, POV Alec Lightwood, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22679497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka
Summary: A difficult meeting at the Clave forces a conversation about the one thing Magnus and Alec aren’t ready to even think about. After much reflection and research, Alec embarks on a journey to become immortal. Though with ceremonies to perform, sacrifices to be made, and an unexpected ‘gift’ from an absent Asmodeus, what will they both have to endure, to get their truly happy ever after?
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Who Dares To Love Forever? [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602904
Comments: 12
Kudos: 106
Collections: SHBingo





	Who Dares To Love Forever? - Cursed

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is for the bingo square _cursed_ and will explain, theoretically, why all these bingo squares 'can' be wedged into one story!

Magnus' horror reflects in Alec's eyes as his own ricochets back, seeming to bounce around the stone, cold walls.

"Asmodeus?" Alec says, watching Magnus step away, furiously trying to open a portal and then staggering backward when he can't. 

"_Yes_," Magnus seethes, "though I don't—"

Whatever Magnus wants to say he quickly forgets for conjuring a piece of paper and a pen that he scribbles on, gritting his teeth as he sends it as a fire message. He walks back to Alec and takes his hand, both of them waiting for a response. It seems to take an age rather than the actual few minutes that pass before paper whizzes through the air for Magnus to catch.

"_Where are you?_" Alec reads in Catarina's now-familiar handwriting.

"I have no idea," Magnus mumbles half under his breath, though then begins a complicated-looking spell that results in a small pulsing light that he circles his hands around as though in a protective bubble, then sends that from their chamber as well.

"It is a… tracking spell, of sorts," Magnus explains as he takes Alec's hand again.

"Magnus. What's going on?"

"I suspect my father is having a little… _fun_, at our expense," Magnus replies, relieving Alec since he now looks more irritated than angry.

"But… he's gone, right? You sent him through that portal, and—"

"Oh, believe me," Magnus says, raising a hand, "he is gone. There is no way for him to return now."

"Okay, but—"

"But it appears that the effects of his _magic_ still lingers," Magnus adds as together they watch a portal beginning to form. Catarina steps through it seconds later, already looking around the chamber in surprise.

"Could you not just go on honeymoon like a normal couple?" she asks in exasperation with a softer smile for Alec.

"Let's get this over with so we can figure out what we need to do next," Magnus says with a long, put-upon sigh as he extends his arm and gestures for Alec to do the same.

Alec watches Catarina pulse magic at them both, admiring the way it curls around and up their arms. Will his magic look like that one day too?

"It appears there is a curse here, in your blood," Catarina sighs when she finishes, dropping her hands to her sides.

Alec feels sick. "I thought you said, with my angel blood—"

"Not yours," Catarina says, cutting Alec off, "with _you_, Magnus. It seems your dad left you a little parting gift."

"As I thought," Magnus replies, rolling his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Alec asks in alarm for the resigned look passing between them.

"It means that this _ceremony_ to make you immortal is not quite over yet. Or going to be easy to get through, I would imagine."

_Easy_? 

"Alec. You're wanting to become immortal, to become a warlock. It's not like coloring your hair, or getting a piercing, or something," Catarina says, patient though with a clipped edge to her voice. Alec knows it's for her concern for them, watching as she continues to cast her gaze around the chamber, as Magnus begins to explore.

"I know that."

"People who are successful with these trials to become immortal; they are rare," she adds, not unkindly. Alec appreciates her candor, wanting to go into this with his eyes wide open.

"We knew there were risks, Catarina," Magnus says softly, squeezing Alec's hand as he passes. "I wouldn't allow Alec to put himself through anything I didn't believe we could both deal with."

"I know. But neither of you—none of us—anticipated your dad's interference," Catarina explains, looking sorry for them both, which Alec hates. What could Asmodeus possibly have done to them?

"Meaning, what?" 

"Meaning… I don't know," Catarina says, her hands slapping down by her sides. "Magnus?"

"_Alexander_," Magnus says softly, closing his eyes, and sagging.

"Magnus? What is it?"

Magnus' smile is soft, and even sad, which Alec hadn't planned on seeing the day after their second wedding; or any day, in fact. "It's _you_, I believe."

"Me, what?"

"My father saw my loving you, my love for you, as a weakness," he tells him, gently taking his hand.

"I know," Alec agrees, remembering his conversation with Asmodeus and still feeling cold for it. How he ever let so much self-doubt creep in so he would _believe_ him Alec still curses himself for after all these years. "He said I'd be the death of you."

"More like the _life_ of me," Magnus mumbles half under his breath, squeezing his hand in reassurance. "We will figure this out, never fear."

"Figure what out?"

"I think that since Magnus can only use his magic to summon things here, and to use here, that Asmodeus must have put some kind of… I don't know? What would you call it?"

"Aside from a final cruelty from a father who—"

"Aside from that, yes," Catarina says, raising her hands in defense to placate him, "let's keep this practical."

"I think perhaps Asmodeus found a way to… bind my blood to this place, so I cannot go anywhere. And since you are now bound to _me_, in all manner of ways—"

"I'm bound here with you?" Alec finishes for him as he looks around them.

"Seems that way."

Alec watches with little hope as Catarina then opens a portal, and he and Magnus attempt to step through. They are both thrown backward with force, grumbling as they help one another up checking for bruises from their fall.

"And what does that mean for us?" Alec asks as he dusts off Magnus' back, clouds of it billowing upwards to make him cough.

"It means, that in order to, I suppose, _purify_ your blood, Magnus, to remove this curse of your father's, you and Alec are going to have to… figure out what your dad intended. I'll assume since it sounds like he had a _problem_ with your relationship, it's going to be something that you need to endure to… prove its validity?"

"_Endure_ doesn't sound like a lot of fun," Alec says, not liking the way Magnus seems to tense beside him.

"That's because it's not. How could it be? What nonsense would he have conjured purely for his entertainment?"

The three of them begin to scour the chamber looking for any clues that might tell them what is expected of them. It takes them an hour to find it; a dimple in one of its walls that, when Magnus presses his palm against it, reveals a small hole to its side that can only be viewed from one angle. Beside it is carved the words _votre sang_.

"He wants our blood in here?" Alec says as he peers in to see the hole narrow and slope away.

"I suppose," Magnus replies.

"Why's it written in French?"

"An inside joke, I am sure. My father had a far fonder memory of our time together in Marseille than I," Magnus adds, with a bitter grimace.

"So, we're just supposed to—"

Alec watches Magnus tuck his fingers into the hole and sigh, pressing them down with a soft intake of breath. He reaches for him in alarm for the bright splash of red now across his fingers, though realizes when nothing happens that he'll probably need to do the same. Magnus' smile for him is pinched as he slots his non-injured fingers through Alec's, nodding towards the wall in resignation. 

"I'm sorry, Alexander. Though if we are to find a way out of this—"

"You don't think my blood being _different_ now is going to be a problem?"

"Well. We only have one way of finding out."

Alec sighs, tucking his fingers into the hole and pressing down, wincing for the sting across the tips of them. He steps back in alarm when the wall begins to shudder and shift, opening slowly in a manner Alec imagines a portal would; if it were made of stone.

The wall now open, the three of them peer inside, finding a long, narrow hallway with a slight shimmer of light at the end. Alec realizes when he moves that it's only a reflection from the chamber they're in, that Magnus has lit. He is already dreading what is waiting for them for not having any idea what Asmodeus could possibly have wanted. Whatever it is has to be bad, for the look that still hasn't left Magnus' face.

"Do you want me to try to come with you?" Catarina asks in doubt as she leans closer, then backs away.

"I think this is probably only meant for Alec and myself."

They say their goodbyes, the telltale whoosh of a portal behind them as Magnus and Alec begin their walk along that hallway telling them Catarina has returned home. There would be no benefit to her staying her, Alec knows, though still feels the pressure of them going into this unknown alone. He is comforted once again by a glimpse at Magnus' face that says he is still only aggravated rather than upset. Though when they step through into a second chamber that has a large doorway with a mirror set in the center of it, Alec watches Magnus' face fall as he casts a light around them.

On one wall there seem to be instructions for them, written in an older dialect of French that Alec has trouble understanding many words of. Though he thinks he can pick out the phrase _soulmate_, and _alternate dimension_, and doesn't like the way Magnus continues to grumble under his breath.

"Oh, my father is very _entertaining_," Magnus says, turning to examine the mirror in thought with a cold blast of laughter.

"Meaning, what?"

"Meaning, that he intends for us to prove our love for one another, by proving we are… _soulmates_."

"Okay, so what does that involve?"

Magnus waves back at the message on the wall before calling Alec's attention to the mirror. "It appears that this is a doorway between dimensions, or realities, I suppose."

"Like… the one Meliorn opened for Clary?"

"Similar. Though what difference this makes for this one being created by a Prince of Hell instead of the Seelies, I do not know."

"Okay." Alec knows a little of what both Clary and Jace experienced, though has never been curious enough to ask more. _Soulmates_ doesn't sound like anything bad; it's how he feels about Magnus anyway. How awful could this possibly be?

"Alexander," Magnus says, clearing his throat and giving that tiny flicker of a smile he does whenever about to say something difficult. "It appears my father anticipated our union. _This_ one."

Alec watches the way he waves over where his wedded rune is, and presses his hand over _his_ for feeling Magnus' conflict pulse through him. "Okay, well. That's not a bad thing, right?"

"I also suspect that he thought the subject of immortality might… occur to you," Magnus adds, looking at the mirror in mistrust.

"Oh."

"In any case. I'm not sure if that even makes any difference. The point is, I don't think we can leave this place until we go through there."

Alec follows the point of Magnus' finger at the mirrored doorway. "So. What's in there?"

"Us. Well. _Versions_ of us, in any case."

"Like… alternative realities of us?"

"It appears my father wants us to… experience ourselves, in other dimensions."

"...why?" Alec asks, not understanding at all.

"I suppose he hopes to—that he wants for us to seek ourselves out in there, experience _their_ lives, and prove that, no matter what we find, we are still in love. That's what I _think_ this message is attempting to say, anyway," Magnus says, casting another suspicious glance back at the wall. "His French really was never that good."

Alec tries to imagine it, but can't. "Well—"

"I don't think we have any choice," Magnus adds, and as though to prove it, he drops Alec's hand, beginning to test the room and doorway with his magic. His smile is apologetic when he returns to his side.

"Then. How long is this going to take?" Alec asks as he tries to get his head around the idea. He just spent _years_ doing everything needed to become immortal. They just got married _again_. Can they not have _one_ that doesn't come off the back of chaos, or doesn't immediately mean they have to step into some fresh new hell?

"I have no idea. For all I know, time may pass far differently there. It could be that, at least to people _here_, no time passes at all." 

When Alec can't find any words to say, Magnus squeezes his hand for his attention.

"Alexander. Aren't you always telling me that we always find our way back to one another?" 

Yeah, Alec wants to say, but not like _this_, with not knowing what they are to expect. So he only shakes his head and kisses him, turns to face him taking both his hands.

"We'll get through this. Whatever we need to do," he says with more certainty than he feels.

"We will."

"I love you," Alec adds, because if there is any time Magnus needs to hear that, it feels like it is now.

Magnus sighs with that soft bittersweet smile that has always put a protest in Alec's heart. He leans in when Magnus cradles his cheek, savoring the warmth of the gesture, closing his eyes for Magnus' soft, _I love you too_.

"So. Let's do this," Alec says with false enthusiasm, turning Magnus so they are stood side by side. Still holding hands; Alec has no intention of ever letting go of him. They walk through the doorway with the mirror shimmering around them like liquid, clasping on to one another tight.

* * *


End file.
